How to get a 1 in 2 success rate when entering awards

Do you want to be award-winning?

Awards can be a polarising topic.

Some people put great stock in them, whereas others really don’t – seeing them as a vanity metric.

Is it the biggest table spend that wins you the award on the night? Maybe.

Lots of industries have lots of different awards, and we’re sure some are questionable.

But our experience is that to be an award winner you have to be genuinely good – and that they're an impressive reflection of your business, and certainly something to shout about.

Getting shortlisted for an award is something to share with your local press, while you can trumpet it on your social channels and in your mailers to your database.

So, one, it's a genuine accolade, and two, it provides you with great marketing content.

But, while your offering has to be genuinely good to win awards, you have to frame it well.

You can do some fantastic work, but if, when looking to put it forward for awards, you don’t position it correctly when compiling your entry, you’re going to come a cropper.

Here at Pic PR, we’re well versed in the trade, writing entries for all sorts of clients across all sorts of sectors.

And we have a 52% success rate when it comes to getting shortlisted – meaning every other award we enter makes the cut.

To underline this, here’s a quick example of how we helped our hotel clients get shortlisted in their top industry awards.

The Cateys are the leading ones in hospitality – with thousands of entries from across the sector, ranging from individuals to large hotel groups.

In the 2023 Cateys, our clients and their team members have been shortlisted across four separate award categories – including Hotel Chef of the Year, F&B Manager of the Year, Hotel Restaurant Team of the Year and Revenue Manager of the Year.

In each of these the number of shortlisted entries ranges from three to five depending on the category – meaning that making the shortlist is a huge achievement in itself.

The other leading awards for hotels is the Boutique Hotelier awards – and it’s a similar case there, with our clients shortlisted across Best Sustainable Achievement, Most Innovative Marketing Game (OK, that one is our work) and Best Boutique Hotel Bar.

As an agency, we had our doubts about our (PR) industry awards – until we started winning them, as well as judging in others. It was only then, and not to blow our own trumpet too much, we realised – actually, the standard of award-winning work is phenomenal. And, consequently, you have to deliver phenomenal work to win them.

But not only that, you have to deliver a phenomenal entry.

Want us to help you with yours?
                                
Just get in touch. We’d love to help.